


Holliday, Once and Again

by lumosdragon



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, M/M, POV Multiple, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 12:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20760623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumosdragon/pseuds/lumosdragon
Summary: She tried to possess him, but he wasn't a possession. At least, not her possession. As long as Earp lived on, she didn't stand a chance.





	Holliday, Once and Again

It was the same story, over and over again.

When it was just the two of them, Kate felt like the only woman in the world – at the very least, the only woman in the world who mattered. John Henry, handsome John Henry with the quick gun and the ready wit – he knew how to touch her, how to hold her, what to do and say to make her feel _special_. She was so far from home, but when it was just the two of them, John Henry made her feel like she was where she belonged.

But it wasn’t always just the two of them. Of course she knew about his infatuations, his dalliances, his ladies of the night. She didn’t mind. After all, it wasn’t as though she didn’t have her own fun sometimes. After all, it wasn’t as though he loved them. It was the people he did love that troubled her. The person he loved. The person who loved him back.

*

It was so gradual, so natural, that he didn’t really notice until it had already happened. One day he was Wyatt Earp, plain and simple. Then, before he knew it, he was Wyatt-and-Doc. _Who is Doc Holliday?_ they asked, and Wyatt answered: He is a gambler. He is a gun-slinger. He is a gentleman. He is my dear friend.

The truth was, nothing Wyatt could say would ever encompass what existed between him and Holliday. It was friendship, but it was a friendship unlike any other Wyatt had had. He didn’t have to speak for Doc to know what he wanted to say. He didn’t have to ask for Doc to answer. They would die for each other, but more importantly, they lived for each other too. When Wyatt thought about his life, he thought about himself with Doc Holliday, riding into whatever dangers or delights awaited them next. What words could he use to describe the bond between them? Ever since he had met Doc, Wyatt had stopped being one person. He was Wyatt-and-Doc – more than he had ever been, more than he had ever imagined he could be.

*

John Henry soon forgot his infatuations, his dalliances, his ladies of the night, but he could never forget Wyatt Earp. He couldn’t even pretend. Kate sensed how Wyatt hovered at the edge of every plan he made, every story he told. Sometimes she came across John Henry standing at the porch, smoking and staring out at the horizon, and she knew they weren’t alone. Her husband was thinking of his friend. She was standing right there, but he couldn’t see her, not in the way she wanted, not when Wyatt Earp was on his mind.

She hated herself for her envy. It baffled and bored her. Still, she couldn’t shake it off. The fact remained that she wanted to be the most important person in her husband’s life, and she knew she wasn’t. When he wanted to, John Henry could make her feel like the only woman in the world, but she still wondered. Was there ever a time when Wyatt Earp walked in on his friend and saw that Doc Holliday was not really looking, not really listening, because he was thinking so deeply of his wife? How did John Henry think about her when she wasn’t there? Did he think about her at all?

*

Wyatt had no way of knowing what the future held. Sometimes he imagined darkness, or chaos, or heroism, or adventure, or pain. The only constant was Doc Holliday. He never questioned that he would approach the rest of his life as Wyatt-and-Doc.

They were young men, and they got drunk, as young men often did. Wyatt was laughing, falling over his own feet, and Doc grabbed hold of him, threw his arm over his shoulder. “Steady now, steady.” Doc walked him into the moonlit street, squinted one way and another, trying to remember where their rented room was. Wyatt leaned into his shoulder, breathing in his smell of dust and sweat and whiskey. Doc glanced down, Wyatt looked up, and when their eyes met, he burst into a fresh peal of laughter. “What? What’s so funny?” Doc asked, shaking him in mock irritation.

Wyatt reached out, patted his rough, stubbly cheek. “Your ugly mug, that’s all.”

“I’ve half a mind to dump you in the street. Let you fend for yourself for the night.”

Wyatt couldn’t stop giggling. He wasn’t laughing from amusement. He was laughing from joy. The moon was bright and beautiful, the drink was warm in his chest. Doc was warm beside him, and close, so close – they might have been one person. They were one person, Doc-and-Wyatt, Wyatt-and-Doc. It was perfect, everything about that night was perfect. Wyatt Earp was young and drunk and so was his friend, his good dear friend, and they were going to live forever.

*

It got to a point where she couldn’t stand to be around the two of them. John Henry brought Wyatt to their home, and Kate offered drinks and snacks while her husband and his friend talked, and she tried not to notice how different their conversations were from the conversations she and John Henry had, but she couldn’t ignore it. There was a shorthand between them, a code built of imperceptible shifts in mood and tone that she could never quite catch. She hated the way they smiled at jokes she didn’t understand. She hated the way they smiled at her, brief and absent, as though she might not be there at all. Most of all, she hated the way they looked at each other, the moments when they held each other’s gaze for a beat too long, and she thought: They are seeing each other, really seeing each other. No one will ever see them the way they see each other. I have the power to see the past and the future, but I will never see John Henry the way he is being seen right now.

It enraged her. It broke her heart.

She watched Wyatt Earp touch her husband’s hand, and she watched the way her husband nodded, as though this meant something to him. She heard Wyatt Earp whisper, and she heard her husband stifle a laugh. She still played the part of the good hostess – she waited until Wyatt Earp was gone, and then she snapped.

“I don’t want you bringing him here anymore. I don’t want to see him in my house.”

“What? You mean Wyatt?” He reached out for her, started to draw her close. “Katie, darling, you can’t mean –”

She pulled away. She couldn’t let herself melt for his charm again. It was all too easy for him. “_Listen_ to me. I tell you, I don’t want to see him anymore. I – I am your wife! Do my requests mean nothing to you?”

“Doesn’t sound much like a request. Sounds more like a demand.” He hesitated. “What’s gotten into you? You don’t like Wyatt now?”

“This is not about my feelings for Wyatt. This is about – he – you and him –”

“What are you implying, Kate?” And now the cajoling sweetness had melted away and been replaced by steel.

She erupted. “I don’t like who you become around him! I don’t like who I become to you when you’re around him! You forget that I belong to you, and you belong to me –”

“I do not _belong_ to anyone,” he spat, “Do you hear yourself, woman? I am not a possession, to be bartered and bought –”

“_You belong to him_.” John Henry was quiet. She had been trying to use her fury to smother her other feelings, but his silence broke through her barricade, and she was swallowed by a wave of grief. It was just the two of them, Kate and John Henry, and Kate had never felt so alone. She deflated; she had no energy left for anger. “You belong to him, he possesses you. Doesn’t he? See – you don’t try to deny it. Will I ever be your first? The first person you think of, the first person you wish for. Will I?”

*

They were going to live forever. Wyatt leaned into Doc Holliday, breathing in his Doc Holliday smell, feeling the weight of him. This was how life should feel. Like an ocean. His love for his friend was an ocean, vast and divine, so astonishingly lovely it made him want to cry. Raucous Doc Holliday. Cunning Doc Holliday. Courageous Doc Holliday. Handsome Doc Holliday.

“Holliday,” he said.

“What is it now, Earp?”

“Holliday, stop.” Doc drew to a halt and waited, expectant. Wyatt laboriously straightened, resting one hand on Doc’s shoulder to keep himself steady. “I want you to know.”

“Know what?”

“You are my friend. My best friend.” It wasn’t enough. How could he explain? He had never felt this way before. How did he tell him: I didn’t realize I wasn’t whole. I didn’t realize I was missing a part of me, until I met you. “I love you, John Henry Holliday.”

Doc started to smile, and Wyatt felt a stake smash into his heart. He couldn’t bear it if Doc laughed. He was too young and too drunk; he couldn’t survive laughter.

His devastation must have reflected on his face, because Doc quickly became serious. His eyes were soft. He put his arm back around Wyatt’s shoulder, and it was only then that Wyatt realized he was trembling. The kiss was gentle and careful and perfectly chaste, and the ocean spilled over, faultless blue crests and soft white surf.

“Come on,” Doc said, hoisting Wyatt back up, “At this rate, we still won’t be in our beds by daylight.”

He would never say it, but it didn’t matter. They were best friends. Wyatt already knew.

*

She can’t deny that she felt some relief when Constance told her what had happened to her husband. Of course sorrow came first, and rage, and fear, but eventually – relief. When she heard that Wyatt Earp had died, she had to suppress a brief burst of pleasure. The constant competition for John Henry’s love was over. She had sacrificed everything for him. She would save him, and she would be his first, his only, for eternity.

She stupidly ignored everything she knew about history. It repeated itself. The same story, over and over again.

*

What was the future without Doc Holliday? Wyatt thought he knew at least one thing about the future, but he was wrong. He knew nothing; his life shattered in his hands. Who was he without Doc Holliday?

“I loved him” Wyatt said. “We know,” they said. But they didn’t know. How could they? How could anyone understand the ocean if they hadn’t seen it for themselves? He faced outlaws and demons and hell, but no pain matched the pain of holding an entire ocean inside. Once it had been wonderful, but that was when he was Wyatt-and-Doc. Now he was reduced, bereft of a whole part of the person he had been, and it was agony.

He died in agony, but it was only a part of him. Once he had been young and drunk and in love, and he had thought: I am going to live forever. A part of Wyatt Earp died. Another part of him lived forever. It turned out he had known more about the future than he’d believed.

*

John Henry could never forget. How foolish she had been to hope. How foolish she had been to believe she could be his number one. Wyatt Earp died; still he managed to win John Henry’s love. How foolish she had been to think he could ever lose.

She saw Wyatt in his great-great-granddaughter. She saw him when her husband and Wynonna were together. Their touches. Their jokes. Their eyes. The way they held each other’s gaze, a beat too long. They saw each other. Of course they did. Damned Earps.

She had tried everything. Sacrifice. Sadism. Sweetness. She tried to possess him, tried to make their lifeblood one, but it was just as he’d said – he wasn’t a possession. At least, not her possession. It didn’t matter what she did. She could give up her mortality, she could give up lifetimes, she could change him and charm him – it didn’t matter. As long as Earp lived on, she didn’t stand a chance.

At the end of the day, the story was the same. At the end of the day, John Henry Holliday belonged to only one person. The person who’d loved him. The person he loved back.


End file.
